1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a toll collecting system and a toll collecting method applied to a toll road or others.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in toll roads, a use toll collection system using magnetic transit cards, that is, a magnetic card system is introduced and operated. However, recently, an automatic toll collecting system using radio communication, a so-called ETC (electric toll collection) system has been studied.
Firstly, a magnetic card system using magnetic transit cards which is operated at present will be explained.
The magnetic card system reads entrance ramp magnetic information from a transit card on which entrance ramp information is magnetically written at an exit ramp toll booth and collects a charge on the basis of the information. The magnetic card system always issues one magnetic transit card for one vehicle.
At present, a magnetic transit card is issued by an automatic transit card issuer (hereinafter, called an automatic issuer) installed at an entrance ramp toll booth. On the vehicle entry side of the automatic issuer, a vehicle entry detector (or vehicle kind discriminator) is installed, which detects the vehicle entry state and allows the automatic issuer to issue a card.
Next, an ETC system whose future introduction is being studied will be explained.
The ETC system comprises a device on the vehicle side and devices on the traffic lane side. On the vehicle side, a vehicle mounting device (an IC card included) having a radio communication function is mounted. On the traffic lane side, a charge calculator having a radio communication function and various vehicle detectors are installed.
When a vehicle passes an entrance ramp toll booth of a toll road, the radio communication result is record on the IC card via the vehicle mounting device. When the vehicle passes an entrance ramp toll booth, the radio communication result is read as entrance ramp information from the IC card via the vehicle mounting device, and a charge is calculated by the charge calculator, and the result obtained by subtracting the charge is recorded on the IC card via the vehicle mounting device.
The ETC system is provided with a plurality of vehicle detectors on the traffic lane side and controls behavior of vehicles passing on the traffic lanes.
On the other hand, in an entrance ramp toll booth using the magnetic card system, when misreading of a vehicle detector (a vehicle separation phenomenon) occurs, mistaking of a card such that two transit cards are issued for one vehicle and the next vehicle receives the second transit card occurs.
For the mistaken transit card, although the name information of the entrance ramp toll booth (magnetic information and card print) is the same, there is the possibility that the vehicle kind may be interchanged. However, the exit ramp toll booth changes the vehicle kind and hence can surely receive the charge.
As mentioned above, the ETC system conceivable at present is structured so as to install a plurality of vehicle detectors on the traffic lane side where vehicles pass and control the vehicle moving state. However, vehicles using a toll road are of various kinds, for example, a vehicle connecting another vehicle behind it with a drawing roll such as a camping car and wrecking car.
On the other hand, the ETC system is intended to arrange many infrared sensors in each vehicle detector and detect vehicles as surely as possible. However, the system cannot correspond to vehicles of various connection kinds and even if many vehicle detectors are installed, there is the possibility that there may be a vehicle detector which can correctly detect one vehicle as one vehicle and a vehicle detector which cannot do it.
When all the vehicle detectors detect a vehicle similarly, it may be understood that the vehicle is detected correctly. However, when detection as one vehicle and separation and detection as two vehicles coexist, a misread vehicle may be considered to remain on the traffic lane. The misread vehicle indicates the back vehicle drown by the vehicle and from the viewpoint of system control, if the vehicle kind is decided by the front vehicle, there is no need to decide the kind of the drawing back vehicle. Actually, the system may misdecide that the back vehicle remains as one vehicle independent of the front vehicle.
When the next vehicle enters the traffic lane in this misdecision state, from the viewpoint of system control, a process of two vehicles including the remaining vehicle (misread vehicle) is generate. Actually, since there exists only the back vehicle on the traffic lane, a failure occurs in control of the order and behavior of vehicles and a great error may be caused in the system.
In the aforementioned conventional ETC system, to ascertain two vehicles and a drawing vehicle entering continuously on the traffic lane, a plurality of vehicle detectors are installed on the traffic lane. However, only such a vehicle separation measure is not sufficient and a problem arises that the system may misdecide a vehicle and its drawing vehicle as two vehicles and an error is caused in the system operation.